Chapter 212 – Mental Torture

Although Alice didn't know why Andusia's fear of her had suddenly grown deeper, it wasn't exactly a bad thing.
After all, she was trying to get information on the Demon King's Power out of Andusia.
If Andusia feared her, it would make interrogating the Ninth Demon King much easier.

“I'm going to ask you a few simple questions.
If you can answer them, I might consider returning some of your freedom to you,” Alice said as she set Andusia's miniature body on the hotel room's desk.
Then, she sat on the chair and stared straight into Andusia's eyes as she continued, “If you refuse to be obedient, I'm going to put you up for display inside a display cabinet.”

“Screw you, you perverted Hero! I won't answer any of your questions!” Andusia yelled rebelliously.
After being set on the table, she promptly curled up her body warily.
No matter how she looked at it, there was no way a decent person would carry around so many panties from different women on their person.
Meanwhile, since Alice was such a huge pervert, there was no saying whether this perverse Hero would also set her sights on a figurine.

Alice's mouth twitched a little as she tried her best to ignore Andusia's remarks.
Then, she grabbed Andusia's curled-up body with her right hand and asked, “During your time as the Demon King, did you notice anything strange with the Demon King's Power? Like, say, did it show any signs of self-consciousness, instincts, or something of the sort?”

Alice had similarly asked this question to Luna before.
However, Luna's answer rendered Alice speechless.
Apparently, Luna had focused all her attention on searching for the Hero that she never bothered to inspect the Demon King's Power dwelling within her.
Moreover, she was also busy working part-time as an intelligence agent for the Gryffin Kingdom's intelligence department.
So, she didn't really have any spare effort to think about or research the Demon King's Power.

However, Andusia was different.
Similar to past Demon Kings, Andusia had sought out the demons and became the demons' leader shortly after obtaining the Demon King's Power.
Apart from the war, Andusia didn't have to think about anything else.
Thus, she should have had plenty of time to research the Demon King's Power inside her.

Unfortunately, Andusia stayed true to her words and refused to answer Alice's question.
She behaved as if she'd rather die than enlighten the young pervert before her.

“You're making things different for me,” Alice said, frowning as she lifted Andusia's little body to her eye level.
“Hmph.
You should be grateful that the person who found you decided to turn you into a human-shaped figurine.
Otherwise, if you had gotten turned into a coffin instead, we'll see how you can move.”

“So what if I'm shaped like a human? Do you think I like this appearance?” Andusia retorted.
So long as she wasn't providing Alice with any useful information, she was still willing to open her mouth.
Meanwhile, when she heard Alice talking about her figurine body, she couldn't help but be infuriated.
“It's all this body's fault that I can't even remember what I used to look like! Even when I look in the mirror, all I see is this statue's appearance!”

Indeed, Andusia had remained inside a block of wood for a couple of thousand years.
Then, after being dug up, she was forcibly given her current appearance and stuck with it for several dozen years.
It'd be strange if she could still remember her initial appearance.

In reality, Kristine had almost suffered a similar fate after staying inside the Soul Gathering Tablet for several hundred years.
If she hadn't appeared in her soul form to talk with Alice and inspected herself using the little mana she had left, she probably wouldn't have remembered what she looked like.

“Isn't that good? Your current appearance belongs to a character of a national-level anime,” Alice said, chuckling.
She found it quite amusing that the Ninth Demon King, an existence that once threatened the entire human realm, was now sulking in her hand in the form of Magical Girl Hikari.
“You look quite cute.”

“I am a Demon King! I am an existence that brings disaster to humans! How dare you call me cute?!” Andusia fumed as she glared at Alice.
“Just you wait! I'll let you experience this humiliation as well one day!”

“It seems you have quite the high self-esteem as a Demon King.”

While conversing with Andusia, Alice inspected Andusia's body several times using Psychokinetic Transcendence.
However, probably because she had sealed Andusia's mana core, Andusia didn't notice any of her probings at all.
Meanwhile, based on her inspection, she verified that there was indeed only one mana core inside Andusia's body, and it was used to store Andusia's soul and mana.
However, after the mana core was sealed, Andusia couldn't use even the slightest bit of her mana.

Honestly, if Alice wanted to, she could even isolate Andusia's soul inside her mana core, making it so that Andusia couldn't move her figurine body.
However, if she did that, she wouldn't be able to get any information out of Andusia's mouth.

“Wait.
Are you saying that if you see your current appearance, you'll think you are looking at yourself?” After ensuring that Andusia didn't have any way of escaping her clutches, Alice suddenly recalled the words Andusia previously said.
Then, she narrowed her eyes and said, “I see.
So you've forgotten your past appearance, and your mind is subconsciously assuming that your current appearance is your true appearance…”

“What… What are you trying to do?”

Andusia suddenly had a bad feeling as she looked at Alice's expression.

…

After verifying that Andusia wasn't a threat, Alice no longer had any concerns about bringing the Demon King back with her to the March Academy.
When Alice arrived back in her dorm, it just so happened that Zauna was attending one of her elective classes, and Luna was helping Alice gather some information from the intelligence department.
So, nobody was in the dorm.

Afterward, she took a seat in front of her computer with Andusia in her hand and searched for the national-level anime—Magical Girl Hikari.

“Magical Girl ☆ Hikari—evil will never triumph!☆”

“Ahhhhhhhhhh—”

Overall, it was a very standard magical girl anime.
Since magic existed in this world, the “magic” used in the show was much more creative.
Although the show was mainly targeted toward children, Alice still enjoyed watching it.

However, it was a different story for Andusia.
Of the two voices that sounded out just now, the former was Hikari's declaration of justice in the anime, while the latter was Andusia's scream of agony.

Search hosted.novel for the original.

“Stop making me watch this!!!!!!!” Andusia screamed.

Unfortunately, Alice had pinched Andusia's hands with her fingers, so Andusia couldn't cover her eyes even if she wanted to.
She could only watch as the girl shown on Alice's computer did all sorts of childish actions.
To make matters worse, her brain had superimposed herself with the Hikari on the screen, making herself think that she was the one doing those actions.

She, Andusia, was the Ninth Demon King.
She had once led the demon army to invade the human realm, destroying numerous human settlements and occupying a large portion of the human realm.
Whenever the slave traders saw her, they would cry while running for their lives.
It was no exaggeration to say that she was a natural disaster for the human race.

At least, that should have been the case…

“Cannon of Love, kira ~☆”

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!”